


Sleepless In Specs

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 12:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9897725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Even between the safety of four motel walls, neither of them could seem to find the comfort to sleep.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/156559088137/more-prompts-yay-i-challenge-you-prompt-6-with) for #6 in [this prompt post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/156511645930/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you)

“Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”

Ignis pinched the bridge of his nose, already exhausted just by having to ask. Gladiolus didn’t even blink at the question, sidling down beneath the sheets and drawing a book to his face from the bedside table.

“ _Our_ bed. I sleep in the nude, what of it?”

“Since _when_?”

“I dunno, since age nineteen maybe? I don’t remember exactly…”

“You don’t strip down when we’re sleeping in a tent.”

“Well, duh, yeah, ‘cause that’s _camping_. I’m not gonna be caught with my drawers off if a daemon attacks in the middle of the night.”

Gods, did he wish he was a daemon right now. Which was not to say Gladiolus wasn’t just as attractive naked as he was clothed, or that Ignis minded sharing a bed with another man. It was just that Ignis thought sleeping with a naked partner should be reserved for more intimate exchanges. _Some_ things had to be sacred. Gladio tilted his book down when Ignis didn’t continue to debate him and his brow lifted suggestively, the smirk practically searing through the other side of the hardcover.

“Like what ya see Iggy?”

…Well, he wasn’t the least appealing specimen Ignis had ever taken abed. Not that it was a thought worth lingering on, regardless of what Gladio’s grin might be insinuating.

This was the first actual motel they’d found along the road from Insomnia – not just a caravan in a gas station parking lot. And Ignis had every intention of reaping the benefits from the establishment. Most prominently its bed. So, he wasn’t about to argue Gladio’s sleeping habits if it meant delaying the only indulgence he’d even remotely been looking forward to since they’d checked in.

He switched off the overhead lights, texted Prompto and waited for confirmation that he and Noctis were secure in the next room over, then slipped into bed next to Gladio. The instant his head touched the pillows, Ignis felt days of knotted stress unwind from him in a great big sigh. Two-star accommodations or not, it was a _bed_ , with springs that squeaked and sheets that rustled and that was enough to make him feel some semblance of humanity again after spending days surviving like animals out in the wilds of Duscae.

“You okay?” Gladio chuckled, making the whole bed shake.

“Quite content, thank you.” He reached up and flicked the bedside lamp off. “Will you be reading long?”

“Nah, not when you need your beauty sleep.”

He closed his book and turned off the last remaining lamp on his side of the bed, plunging the room into blissful darkness.

“I don’t know about ‘beauty sleep,’” Ignis countered, setting his glasses on the bedside table. “But sleep is a beautiful thing.”

“You say that like you haven’t been sleeping.”

“Pot, meet kettle. I’ve been awake enough to notice your late-night excursions from the tent.”

“Is that right?” Gladio snorted, folding his arms behind his head. “Nothin’ gets past you, huh Iggy?”

Ignis looked at the ceiling, hands folding over his stomach and patiently waiting for Gladio to tell him all about it. He probably wasn’t going to get an opportunity to ask him about it in private again. He didn’t want to alarm their younger charges – if it was anything worth being alarmed about in the first place.

“Nothing to worry about,” Gladio said, somehow hearing all of that even when Ignis didn’t say it. “Just get a little restless when we’re out there. Feel like I have to get up and stand guard, is all. What’s your excuse?”

“Pardon?”

Gladio turned his head and fixed him in a stare, frowning in annoyance that Ignis would even attempt to play coy and pretend that he hadn’t just confessed that he hadn’t been sleeping either. Nevertheless, Ignis kept his gaze firmly forward, contemplating whatever that stain was that was bleeding down from the floor above.

“I get the hours that I need,” he stated, without any room for debate.

Gladio didn’t hear the “no debate” part though. He rolled onto his side and his scrutinizing, yellow stare cut into Ignis’s contemplations about the ceiling stain. “Why aren’t you getting more?”

“A full eight hours seems like an egregious over-estimation of the recommended sleep requirement.”

“It’s Noct, isn’t it?”

Ignis slowly clamped his jaw down on the endless dissertation of distracting sleep facts he was prepared to recite in order to avoid the question. Yes, of course it was Noct. It was Noct when Gladio got up to stand guard over a haven that didn’t need protecting. It was Noct when Ignis stayed awake to listen to him whimper in his sleep as his dreams devolved into nightmares.

“They were always bad, but they’ve gotten worse since we left the Crown City,” Ignis mused.

Gladio rolled onto his back again, following Ignis’s gaze to the mysterious stain on the ceiling. As if by divulging the truth behind its origin would provide either of them some clarity on how to help the prince in this, the one battle they couldn’t fight for him.

“You think Prompto will know how to handle him?” Gladio asked into the quiet, glancing at the wall dividing them from their friends.

“If Noctis lets him, then maybe. He’s awfully stubborn when it comes to this though.”

Gladio hummed in agreement, narrowing his gaze in thought. It was a thought that went around and around and around once again, going absolutely nowhere because there was nowhere for it to go. Ignis had been trying to crash that thought himself all too often.

“I suppose I just feel guilty if I get a good night’s rest and he doesn’t,” he sighed into the quiet.

“Yeah, but that’s just gonna hurt the both of you in the long run.”

“Surely, you’re right.”

They were both quiet for a long moment. Perhaps listening for signs of discontent from the other room.

“Just gonna have to trust Blondie for a night,” Gladio finally said, stretching his arms overhead, muscles flexing beneath the ink of his tattoo. “You need the sleep, Iggy. Honestly, we both do. We’ve gotta learn to be a little selfish once in a while.”

Ignis snorted in derision. “An impossible task. About as impossible as the chances of you putting on some pants?”

“G’night, Iggy!”

Gladio turned on his side, the dark map of feathers inked on his back facing Ignis. He stayed awake for a little longer after that, still searching for sounds of his prince’s distress. Around the time he finally decided it was safe to fall asleep, Gladio started snoring. Which struck Ignis as odd before it struck him as irritating. Since they’d been out on the road, he’d never heard Gladio snore before. Which was when he realized: Gladio never slept, either.


End file.
